Latest posts by Martin Moodie (see all)
- Back in New Zealand, Aotearoa, land of the long white cloud - March 11, 2025
- In celebration of The Moodie Davitt Report wāhine - March 8, 2025
- Celebrating Shiseido’s affirmation that age is just a number - March 1, 2025
I’m a flying Kiwi once more. And what’s more I’m flying into Kiwi. Kiwiland that is. New Zealand. Aotearoa, the Land of the Long White Cloud. My original and still spiritual home.
I’ve opened my Interim Cathay Pacific (CX) 113 Interim Bureau 20 minutes or so out of Hong Kong International Airport en route to Auckland Airport, New Zealand, before an 80-minute domestic flight to my hometown, Christchurch.
As you can see, I’ve begun this Blog in the old-fashioned way, handwriting in my beloved Moleskine notebook – one of, I reckon, about 100 I own, so reluctant am I to part with them, even when they are crammed with more words than the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica series.
But wait. It’s not so old-fashioned after all. For this is a Moleskine Smart Notebook. Very smart if you ask me.
Thanks to the wonders of technology, every word (give or take the occasional struggle with my doctor-style handwriting) I’m scribing in my notebook is immediately being replicated on my iPhone’s oh so cleverly paired Moleskine Notes App.
How about that? The age-old craft – and joy – of handwriting fused with state-of-the-art technology.
I can (and did) send a handwritten “See you soon, love you” message to my wife just before take-off. I can also zap a few memos off to my team scattered around the world in Miami (for Summit of the Americas), Hong Kong, Manila, Hainan, England and Wales.
Or I can simply update my mountainous ‘to do’ list.
Almost 12 hours later…
I’ve opened another Interim Bureau, this time in The Gipsy Moth, a nicely chilled-out restaurant and bar in Auckland Airport’s domestic terminal. It’s a good spot to catch up on my work while I await my 5.05pm flight to Christchurch. I’ve ordered a tasty Salt & Pepper Squid with sesame, chilli salt and aioli, decent value at NZ$21.50 (US$12.25) given its quality and sizable portion.
Of course, being in New Zealand there should be no shortage of beverages to wash it down but as they don’t have my old-time favourite, Steinlager, I’ve gone for a Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc from Hawke’s Bay instead. Fresh, zesty, a perfect accompaniment for the calamari and again decent value for a glass at NZ$12 (US$6.85).
Arriving at Auckland Airport means, of course, exposure to arrivals duty-free shopping, now solely in the good hands of Aelia Duty Free (Lagardère Travel Retail), although that tenure is currently subject to challenge given the well-advanced tender for the departures/arrivals duty-free contract.
One thing New Zealand airport retailers do very well is communicate and maximise the generous arrivals allowance (in the case of alcohol, six bottles of wine and three of spirits). Having carefully wrapped a fine Tamnavulin Tempranillo Cask Edition single malt Scotch whisky and an equally excellent Domaine Cailbourdin Nanogyra Pouilly-Fumé in my suitcase, the maths were simple and several incredibly helpful staff members were on hand to check my calculations.
It’s a vast twin-store (i.e. left and right, but these days mono-retailer) operation, full of attractive deals to a travelling public well-versed in the merits of arrivals shopping.
Flying Kiwi turned into Shopping Kiwi as I topped up my wine allowance with a mix of Kiwi reds and whites (Church Road, Mt. Edward; Man O War and Brancott Estate), plus a bottle each of Broken Heart Quince Gin and (I kid you not) Sheep Milk & Honey Gin, also from Aotearoa.
Hopefully I did my bit towards raising the average spend per pax at the nation’s premier gateway.
My Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc is done and I hear my gate calling like the aviation equivalent of Danny Boy’s pipes. Christchurch (Ōtautahi), the city I left 38 years ago, here I come. ✈
